We establish general limits on how precise a parameter, e.g. frequency or the strength of a magnetic field, can be estimated with the aid of full and fast quantum control. We consider uncorrelated noisy evolutions of N qubits and show that fast control allows to fully restore the Heisenberg scaling (~1/N^2) for all rank-one Pauli noise except dephasing. For all other types of noise the asymptotic quantum enhancement is unavoidably limited to a constant-factor improvement over the standard quantum limit (~1/N) even when allowing for the full power of fast control. The latter holds both in the single-shot and infinitely-many repetitions scenarios. However, even in this case allowing for fast quantum control helps to increase the improvement factor. Furthermore, for frequency estimation with finite resource we show how a parallel scheme utilizing any fixed number of entangled qubits but no fast quantum control can be outperformed by a simple, easily implementable, sequential scheme which only requires entanglement between one sensing and one auxiliary qubit.
We establish general limits on how precise a parameter, e.g. frequency or the strength of a magnetic field, can be estimated with the aid of full and fast quantum control. We consider uncorrelated noisy evolutions of N qubits and show that fast control allows to fully restore the Heisenberg scaling (~1/N^2) for all rank-one Pauli noise except dephasing. For all other types of noise the asymptotic quantum enhancement is unavoidably limited to a constant-factor improvement over the standard quantum limit (~1/N) even when allowing for the full power of fast control. The latter holds both in the single-shot and infinitely-many repetitions scenarios. However, even in this case allowing for fast quantum control helps to increase the improvement factor. Furthermore, for frequency estimation with finite resource we show how a parallel scheme utilizing any fixed number of entangled qubits but no fast quantum control can be outperformed by a simple, easily implementable, sequential scheme which only requires entanglement between one sensing and one auxiliary qubit.
We consider quantum metrology in noisy environments, where the effect of noise and decoherence limits the achievable gain in precision by quantum entanglement. We show that by using tools from quantum error correction this limitation can be overcome. This is demonstrated in two scenarios, including a many-body Hamiltonian with single-qubit dephasing or depolarizing noise and a single-body Hamiltonian with transversal noise. In both cases, we show that Heisenberg scaling, and hence a quadratic improvement over the classical case, can be retained. Moreover, for the case of frequency estimation we find that the inclusion of error correction allows, in certain instances, for a finite optimal interrogation time even in the asymptotic limit.
A central feature of quantum metrology is the possibility of Heisenberg scaling, a quadratic improvement over the limits of classical statistics. This scaling, however, is notoriously fragile to noise. While for some noise types it can be restored through error correction, for other important types, such as dephasing, the Heisenberg scaling appears to be irremediably lost. Here we show that this limitation can sometimes be lifted if the experimenter has the ability to probe physical processes in a coherent superposition of alternative configurations. As a concrete example, we consider the problem of phase estimation in the presence of a random phase kick, which in normal conditions is known to prevent the Heisenberg scaling. We provide a parallel protocol that achieves Heisenberg scaling with respect to the probes' energy, as well as a sequential protocol that achieves Heisenberg scaling with respect to the total probing time. In addition, we show that Heisenberg scaling can also be achieved for frequency estimation in the presence of continuous-time dephasing noise, by combining the superposition of paths with fast control operations.
Quantum precision enhancement is of fundamental importance for the development of advanced metrological optical experiments, such as gravitational wave detection and frequency calibration with atomic clocks. Precision in these experiments is strongly limited by the 1/√N shot noise factor with N being the number of probes (photons, atoms) employed in the experiment. Quantum theory provides tools to overcome the bound by using entangled probes. In an idealized scenario this gives rise to the Heisenberg scaling of precision 1/N. Here we show that when decoherence is taken into account, the maximal possible quantum enhancement in the asymptotic limit of infinite N amounts generically to a constant factor rather than quadratic improvement. We provide efficient and intuitive tools for deriving the bounds based on the geometry of quantum channels and semi-definite programming. We apply these tools to derive bounds for models of decoherence relevant for metrological applications including: depolarization, dephasing, spontaneous emission and photon loss. Quantum metrology employs the properties of quantum states to further enhance the accuracy of some of the most precise measurement schemes to date. Here, a method for estimating the upper bounds to achievable precision in quantum-enhanced metrology protocols in the presence of decoherence is presented.
Quantum metrology is supposed to significantly improve the precision of parameter estimation by utilizing suitable quantum resources. However, the predicted precision can be severely distorted by realistic noises. Here, we propose a control-enhanced quantum metrology scheme to defend against these noises to improve the metrology performance. Our scheme can automatically alter the parameter-encoding dynamics with adjustable controls, thus leading to optimal resultant states that are less sensitive to the noises under consideration. As a demonstration, we numerically apply it to the problem of frequency estimation under several typical Markovian noise channels. By comparing our control-enhanced scheme with the standard scheme and the ancilla-assisted scheme, we show that our scheme performs better and can improve the estimation precision up to around one order of magnitude. Furthermore, we conduct a proof-of-principle experiment in a nuclear magnetic resonance system to verify the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. The research here is helpful for current quantum platforms to harness the power of quantum metrology in realistic noise environments.
Quantum metrology offers enhanced performance in experiments on topics such as gravitational wave-detection, magnetometry or atomic clock frequency calibration. The enhancement, however, requires a delicate tuning of relevant quantum features, such as entanglement or squeezing. For any practical application, the inevitable impact of decoherence needs to be taken into account in order to correctly quantify the ultimate attainable gain in precision. We compare the applicability and the effectiveness of various methods of calculating the ultimate precision bounds resulting from the presence of decoherence. This allows us to place a number of seemingly unrelated concepts into a common framework and arrive at an explicit hierarchy of quantum metrological methods in terms of the tightness of the bounds they provide. In particular, we show a way to extend the techniques originally proposed in Demkowicz-Dobrzański et al (2012 Nature Commun. 3 1063), so that they can be efficiently applied not only in the asymptotic but also in the finite number of particles regime. As a result, we obtain a simple and direct method, yielding bounds that interpolate between the quantum enhanced scaling characteristic for a small number of particles and the asymptotic regime, where quantum enhancement amounts to a constant factor improvement. Methods are applied to numerous models, including noisy phase and frequency estimation, as well as the estimation of the decoherence strength itself.
In an idealistic setting, quantum metrology protocols allow to sense physical parameters with mean squared error that scales as 1/N2 with the number of particles involved---substantially surpassing the 1/N-scaling characteristic to classical statistics. A natural question arises, whether such an impressive enhancement persists when one takes into account the decoherence effects that are unavoidable in any real-life implementation. In this thesis, we resolve a major part of this issue by describing general techniques that allow to quantify the attainable precision in metrological schemes in the presence of uncorrelated noise. We show that the abstract geometrical structure of a quantum channel describing the noisy evolution of a single particle dictates then critical bounds on the ultimate quantum enhancement. Our results prove that an infinitesimal amount of noise is enough to restrict the precision to scale classically in the asymptotic N limit, and thus constrain the maximal improvement to a constant factor. Although for low numbers of particles the decoherence may be ignored, for large N the presence of noise heavily alters the form of both optimal states and measurements attaining the ultimate resolution. However, the established bounds are then typically achievable with use of techniques natural to current experiments. In this work, we thoroughly introduce the necessary concepts and mathematical tools lying behind metrological tasks, including both frequentist and Bayesian estimation theory frameworks. We provide examples of applications of the methods presented to typical qubit noise models, yet we also discuss in detail the phase estimation tasks in Mach-Zehnder interferometry both in the classical and quantum setting---with particular emphasis given to photonic losses while analysing the impact of decoherence.